Word Finder - backbones

definition

The series of vertebrae, separated by disks, that encloses and protects the spinal cord, and runs down the middle of the back in vertebrate animals.

definition

Any fundamental support, structure, or infrastructure.

example

Before automobiles, railroads were a backbone of commerce.

definition

Courage, fortitude, or strength.

example

He would make a good manager, if he had a little more backbone.

Their hands bore the hard calluses of heavy manual labor, their backbones carried the scars of years of knocks against rough hewn surfaces.

All soap operas have a few main families that serve as the backbones of the community in which they reside.

Lofty lines of fold mountains form the " backbones " of North America in the Rocky of Mountains and the west coast systems, of South America in the Cordillera of the Andes, of Europe in the Pyrenees, Alps, Carpathians and Caucasus, and of Asia in the mountains of Asia Minor, converging on the Pamirs and diverging thence in the Himalaya and the vast mountain systems of central and eastern Asia.

The critical time had arrived when the sea was to be driven away eastward, while the immense ridges due to the " Alpine " movements were about to emerge as the backbones of new continental lands.